Devil's Dynamite (1987)

In Robo Vampire 2: Devil's Dynamite, a futuristic warrior (wearing a silver lamé jumpsuit and matching silver motorcycle helmet and boots) rescues a fat kid (dressed as a vampire) and a girl (possibly a ghost) from a trio of hopping vampire ninjas. If you're anything like me, that alone qualifies the film for a viewing, but as crazy as it all gets, it's not half as entertaining as it sounds thanks to an almost entirely incomprehensible plot. As with many a Godfrey Ho movie, footage from at least two martial arts films has been spliced together to make a total mess that jumps from one scene to another with little cohesion. With all the random chopping and changing, it's far too easy to not give a damn.As far as I could fathom, the film revolves around a gambling king called Steven Cox, who has just been released from prison after 10 years, having been set up by crime boss Madame Mary. Now free, Steven wants to settle the score, but must do battle with Mary's army of hopping vampires, and deal with the chancers who are after his buried horde of gold. Quite how Alex, the silver clad warrior, and the ghostly girl fit into things is beyond me.3/10 for Alex doing Robot Fu and moonwalking, a brief but bloody knife in an eye, and for featuring attack helicopters on the cover when there aren't any.

Well, if the above sounds confusing to read then believe me, it's nothing compared to the actual film! Great Scott! - This is a completely hat-stand flick to put it as mildly as possible, but with the name Tomas Tang attached, it comes as frankly little surprise. OK, so let me try to shed some light on what this is broadly about; An evil American working alongside the queen of the underworld (who appears courtesy of a completely different film of course!) hires a possessed Taoist priest to summon vampires in order to wipe out those who presumably oppose them. Okay.....but hold on; there's more! - You see, the forces of good are represented by a chap called Alex who when ever in danger transforms into - Tin Foil Wrapped, Silver Motorbike Helmet Wearing Warrior!......Well, OK, he isn't actually referred to as such, but the description is entirely apt nonetheless! Now throw into this mix a gambling champion called Steven and his buried gold, some ninja.....who are killed and then resurrected as vampire ninja and a completely odd series of scenes featuring a little boy who has an odd proclivity to dress up as a vampire and subsequently scare a little girl ghost (at least I think she was a ghost!). Yes, as you can well imagine, this is one hell of a bloody mess! On the other hand, much like the rest of Tomas Tang's/Filmark International's insane output, it is nonetheless strangely compelling in a manner not entirely dissimilar to that morbid curiosity one feels to have a gawp when passing a road accident in fact.

An evil drug cartel uses vampires to ensure that they retain their power. Some guy wearing a motorcycle helmet who looks like he's wrapped in tin foil -- he resembles a poor man's Inframan -- battles said vampires. Meanwhile criminal mastermind Steven Cox gets sprung from the joint and tries to hook back up with wicked duplicitous former moll Mary (the ever lovely and graceful Angela Mao). Got that? Well, I'm still not quite sure I got the insanely incoherent plot right, but this ridiculous rambling mess is nonetheless very entertaining in its nonstop jaw-dropping absurdity. For starters, those aforementioned vampires are clearly a bunch of dudes sporting tacky greasepaint make-up and a mouthful of cheap plastic fangs. Plus they can be controlled by sticking a piece of paper to their foreheads! The wild martial arts fight scenes with these hopping freaks wreaking all kinds of crazy havoc are absolutely sidesplitting. The alarmingly atrocious scenery-gnashing acting provides a wealth of unintentional laughs as well. Ditto the expected hilariously horrendous dubbing. But what really clinches this baby's status as a total schlock hoot is the way it haphazardly tosses together two separate pictures into a single incredibly inane composite feature. It's by no means a good film, but it's definitely a great deal of always enjoyable and often uproarious goofy fun all the same.

This is another Eastern Horrors DVD from the Brentwood bargain basement (Amazon.com still has some VHS tapes of it and the picture is of that quality - full screen and English dubbed). It seems that Angela Mao is Mary the former lover of Koch (I'm not sure the sound is bad and sometimes it sounds like Kok)who has a treasure chest(!) of gold buried about 10 inches down in the sand on a beach that a hefty gangster with an eye patch wants badly. Mary is actually the boss of the underworld (Angela doesn't do any of her famous kung fu fighting she just stands around with her glitter eye shadow looking mean) and she's about to marry a much younger guy than Koch. There's an English guy with a beard (I think this is Richard Phillips) who has an evil priest using hopping vampires to keep his mob in power (I also think he works for Angela but the connection between the gangsters isn't really made clear. There's also a guy named Alex who has a good priest on his side and he turns into a guy in a cheesy tin foil sort of space suit with a matching silver helmet who battles the hopping vampires. The eye patch gangster gets Koch's gold but is killed soon afterward. The spacesuit guy defeats the hopping vampires. Koch kills Mary in revenge then is trapped in a beach house that is blown up and he appears to die in the flaming house. If this was Super Inframan it would rate an 8 or 9 but as a somewhat juvenile action movie for me it gets a 5. There's also a little chunky boy hopping vampire for the kids. No nudity no sex some fighting but not so great.